


Your Sweet Hue

by orchid314



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018 [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 05:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15357630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchid314/pseuds/orchid314
Summary: Glimpses of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson over four seasons and four decades.





	Your Sweet Hue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for July Writing Prompts. Prompt 19: Four Seasons. Give us a glimpse of all four seasons with Holmes and Watson.

_April 1881_

Two months had passed since Doctor John Watson had moved into Baker Street. Even after they had completed the case that Watson insisted on calling a Study in Scarlet, Holmes had continued to give him his privacy, as was due a man convalescing from war injuries. In any case, Holmes was not about to modify the hours he spent in the laboratory at St Bartholomew's nor his long solitary rambles around London. He saw how Watson improved with each passing week, although he would sometimes return late at night to the sounds of nightmare, muffled and painful, issuing from his bedroom. 

Recently the two men had fallen into the habit of taking their meals together and Holmes for his part found it a novel sensation. He had never lived with anyone–besides his mother and father and Mycroft–nor shared a breakfast table, with all of its little rituals. He was fascinated by the way in which Watson accepted their living arrangement as a matter of fact, and was determined to observe and record as much as he could while the lark lasted. For despite Mycroft's stern admonitions about the state of Holmes's inheritance and the need for a fellow-lodger, Holmes knew it was merely a matter of time before Watson would fully recover and pack himself off in search of some more conventional companion. 

On this morning Holmes, as was his custom, had laid the _Times_ out flat on the table to his left so that he could read and eat at the same time. Watson sat across from him, looking over his own paper. The only sounds were the occasional clink of china and cutlery and the rustle of turning pages.

From the street below there came a sudden boom and echoing clatter and then a few shouts. Holmes looked up from his newspaper towards the window. It must be one of those careless deliverymen, throwing crates around again. He returned to his reading. 

After a few minutes, it registered with Holmes that the doctor had paused in his breakfast activities. Without raising his head, he glanced across the table to where Watson's hands rested, balled into fists, upon the white cloth. Holmes watched as Watson lifted his knife with one hand and reached for the toast upon his plate with the other. Then he set down the toast on the plate and waited. He set down his knife, too, but it rattled against the edge of the plate and Watson covered it quickly, as if to silence the wayward utensil. Holmes dared a look at his face, which was clammy with cold. Watson stared down at the tablecloth with a fearful concentration. 

Here was a man so terribly upright, the very picture of normality, who was struggling to butter his toast because a crate had fallen in the street outside their door. Holmes was captivated by the incident, like a snake caught in a snakecharmer's stare. Watson was level-headed and made easy conversation with others. He was attentive and asked intelligent questions. But Holmes sensed an imperfect join inside the man. The nightmares told as much, but for some reason a rattling knife spoke more clearly of it. Here perhaps was a person with a strangeness that might accommodate his own.

With the greatest nonchalance, Holmes pulled the toast rack and butter dish towards him, and began preparing several slices of bread while he kept his eyes glued to the _Times_. (For good measure he applied jam to one slice, since he could not remember if Watson liked his toast that way.) Eyes still on his paper, he slid the plate of toast across the table to Watson, stopping just before it would upset his companion's teacup. Holmes withdrew his arm, and bent with renewed attention over the particularly compelling articles on that day's editorial page. 

"Thank you," came Watson's voice after a moment.

He shrugged. "It's no matter." 

Holmes felt, rather than saw, Watson give a nod, as if closing the subject.

The rest of the meal was marked by silence, but Holmes was aware of that comfortable quality that would fill a room whenever John Watson happened to be there.

\--

_December 1894_

Watson could hear Holmes trudging up the stairs to their rooms at Baker Street. The weather had been foul all day, with icy snow pelting at the windows, and he was grateful for the fire that roared in the hearth.

Holmes opened the sitting room door. His boots appeared to be soaked through. His hat showed dark splotches on it where the snow had melted into it, and his muffler hung lashed across his overcoat. No gloves were to be seen on his person.

"Oh, hullo. You got caught in the snow."

"Yes, wonderful observation there," Holmes remarked with a sour expression, as he shed the articles of clothing. "Poring over evidence all afternoon for Lestrade on the Sampson embezzlement case and I'm no closer to piecing it together than I was this morning. File after file of accounts and Sampson's tawdry correspondence with his lady friends to go through. Sherlock Holmes reduced to a bank auditor and reader of bathetic prose, all because Lestrade and his men haven't the wit to uncover the fraud."

Watson took this in stride, observing his friend from his armchair. He felt the leap of his heart at the sight of Holmes. At the still-odd freedom of being able to gaze on him openly like this. Would he ever get used to it? Having Holmes entirely to himself?

Removing his boots and socks, Holmes leaned his head against the back of his chair and sighed. "I believe I spent longer in the bad weather than I realised." 

"Well, that won't do," Watson said. He set aside his journal and left the room, returning after a few minutes with several fresh white towels and a cream of friars' balsam under his arm. He sat on the floor before Holmes ("Do you mind?"), took one of his feet, enfolding it in a towel and placing it in his lap, and began to knead it thoroughly. "They're practically blue. It's a wonder you didn't arrive with a case of chilblains," he smiled shyly up at Holmes. "How does this feel, hmm?" 

"Ahhh..." was all Holmes could manage.

Holmes watched his ministrations as if in a trance. "Did anyone ever do this for you before?" Watson asked. Holmes stared at him, uncomprehending. At last he shook his head. 

"Well, I'm glad we're correcting that, then. Let your feet rest wrapped in the towels, like this. Now we'll do your hands. Here," and Watson knelt in front of him, taking one of Holmes's hands in his own. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off the man, as he deftly worked the warmth into those long fingers, one by one.

"I like to take care of you. It's in my nature." Watson tried to say it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but his pulse beat faster despite himself. He wanted never to be released from the hold of those clear light eyes staring down at him. 

\--

_August 1906_

Watson woke with a start. What time was it? The quiet darkness of the bedroom made no reply. The shuttered door that gave on to the balcony was a little ajar, and let in slanting bars of sun that reached across the tiled floor and deep-piled carpet. It must be late into the afternoon.

He lay on the bed for a few moments more, the tall ceiling remote and cool above him. It was pleasing to empty one's thoughts like this, on the final days of their impromptu holiday in this paradise of heat and light and air.

The door opened inward and the outline of Holmes's figure appeared. "Are you up?" Holmes whispered. Watson could tell that his eyes were blinded by the glare outside. "Yes," he replied. "Come in."

Holmes entered the room and lay down upon the white counterpane that covered the bed. He rolled onto his side to face Watson, and for a long time they merely looked at each other. 

The housekeeper had put a few branches of fig leaves in a jar of water on the bedside table next to Watson. Their sap was dry and green. The scent of it mingled with the warm animal smell of Holmes's perspiration. 

Watson stroked Holmes's forearm and sighed. "You're impatient with all this, aren't you? You want to be back in the bustle of London. Back to your cases and your clients. It's alright, I won't be offended if you say yes."

"But it's our holiday." Holmes looked more than a little sheepish. "It is beautiful here..." he said reluctantly. "The seabathing. And the gardens. And old Fane has a thoroughly catalogued library. But...you know me."

"Yes, I do," Watson gave a little amused acknowledgment, his eyes on the grey shadows of the ceiling. "I do. Let's be off tomorrow, then. For home."

Holmes reached in to give an extravagant kiss of thanks.

\--

_September 1921_

"Sherlock!"

He turned round.

"Do you plan to let me catch up to you, for Heaven's sake? It's getting dark and you know I can't see where I'm going."

Holmes turned and waited, leaning on his cane with a patience only achieved, with no small investment of effort he might add, in his seventh decade. Also, he would forbear to say it, because he had learned the hard way that it was a sensitive subject with Watson, but one couldn't put on extra pounds like that and not expect to feel it in one's baulky leg.

"I know what you're thinking," Watson said, accusingly. "I know exactly what you're thinking! Why did I come on this blasted walk with you to begin with?" 

"I shall offer no pronouncement of any kind," Holmes said solemnly. 

"You, you–Look at you standing there, with your lithe, lean legs and your effortless stride." Watson came up to him now, grinning through the gathering dusk, and punched him affectionately on the shoulder. Holmes made a face of being mortally offended before giving him a mock-punch in return, and in so doing lost his balance for an instant. Watson caught him before he could right himself.

"Steady on, old man," he laughed. "Can't have you falling off the cliffside, can we?"

Rolling his eyes, Holmes attempted to shake off his friend's grasp and, in so doing, inadvertently turned towards the sea. It lay stretched before them under a bright moon, whose glinting path of light on the waves drew their eyes to the far horizon. As long as they had lived here, the view never failed to catch at something inside Holmes. He swayed a bit, his hands knotted over the handle of his cane, and brushed against Watson's shoulder. Watson leaned into him, scarcely touching, and they remained thus for a good while, each finding his equilibrium against the other as they stood in the damp grass, night settling along the Sussex coast.

"Come on," Holmes said at last. "Let's head home."


End file.
